Atheism

[Exiledoomsayer]

How about ghost? Do atheists also believe in ghost?

Some do, some do not.

Thats the thing, atheism only tells you their stance on a god or gods. Ghosts, spirits, gnomes, goblins, 9/11, globalcooling, aliens etc are all things that you cannot determn a persons stance on merely by the fact they are atheistic.

 

[juvenissun]

Some do, some do not.

Thats the thing, atheism only tells you their stance on a god or gods. Ghosts, spirits, gnomes, goblins, 9/11, globalcooling, aliens etc are all things that you cannot determn a persons stance on merely by the fact they are atheistic.

Is atheism also materialism?

If an atheist believed in spirit, then the spirit could be his god. Why not?

 

[stiggywiggy]

There are no true atheists, even if a so-called atheist is deceived into thinking he is. Dawkins' mistake is transparent. He touts the certitude that empirical verification provides, and yet he has no empirical verification for believeing that there cannot be a non-empirical realm, which by definition is unreachable via the empirical senses and thus can never be empirically verified. He must remain an agnostic, but prefers to add arrogance to his uncertainty of which I am sure deep within, he is aware.

 

[Ken-1122]

Is atheism also materialism?

If an atheist believed in spirit, then the spirit could be his god. Why not?

If a person believed a spirit were a God, he wouldn't be an atheist now would he.

 

[Ken-1122]

There are no true atheists, even if a so-called atheist is deceived into thinking he is. Dawkins' mistake is transparent. He touts the certitude that empirical verification provides, and yet he has no empirical verification for believeing that there cannot be a non-empirical realm, which by definition is unreachable via the empirical senses and thus can never be empirically verified. He must remain an agnostic, but prefers to add arrogance to his uncertainty of which I am sure deep within, he is aware.

Proving an negative is not necessary to be an atheist

Ken

 

[RobinRobyn]

There are no true atheists, even if a so-called atheist is deceived into thinking he is. Dawkins' mistake is transparent. He touts the certitude that empirical verification provides, and yet he has no empirical verification for believeing that there cannot be a non-empirical realm, which by definition is unreachable via the empirical senses and thus can never be empirically verified. He must remain an agnostic, but prefers to add arrogance to his uncertainty of which I am sure deep within, he is aware.

Do you believe in fairies? You can't prove they don't exist, so you have to be agnostic about them, right? You have to believe they might exist rather than believe they do not. What about other gods like Zeus or Allah? You can't prove they don't exist either, you have to believe they might exist. So you cannot say you believe they don't exist. I wonder what God would say about that?

 

[stiggywiggy]

Do you believe in fairies? You can't prove they don't exist, so you have to be agnostic about them, right? You have to believe they might exist rather than believe they do not. What about other gods like Zeus or Allah? You can't prove they don't exist either, you have to believe they might exist. So you cannot say you believe they don't exist. I wonder what God would say about that?

The typical dawkins-disciple style of atheist declares with the same certitude with which I inwardly disbelieve in Zeus, that "THERE IS NO NON-EMPIRICAL REALM." Period. This not only leaves no room for fairies, it also precludes the existence of a creator of fairies, and worse, a creator of all that is, was or ever will be, imaginary or not.

And this an atheist cannot declare with certitude if he wishes to use his own methodology of empirical verification. One simply cannot empirically verify the non-existence of that which transcends the empirical.

 

[Ken-1122]

The typical dawkins-disciple style of atheist declares with the same certitude with which I inwardly disbelieve in Zeus, that "THERE IS NO NON-EMPIRICAL REALM." Period. This not only leaves no room for fairies, it also precludes the existence of a creator of fairies, and worse, a creator of all that is, was or ever will be, imaginary or not.

And this an atheist cannot declare with certitude if he wishes to use his own methodology of empirical verification. One simply cannot empirically verify the non-existence of that which transcends the empirical.

Supposed I claim that faries trancends the empirical? Does that mean you can't verify the non-existence of them?

Ken

 

[stiggywiggy]

Supposed I claim that faries trancends the empirical? Does that mean you can't verify the non-existence of them?

Ken

Fairies by definition cannot transcend the empirical. They can (hypothetically) be empirically verified by sight.

But that is irrelevant. Let's use angels. Yeah, you cannot verify the non-existence of angels.

If you think you can, you might as well present your case here.

 

[Ken-1122]

Fairies by definition cannot transcend the empirical. They can (hypothetically) be empirically verified by sight.

But that is irrelevant. Let's use angels. Yeah, you cannot verify the non-existence of angels.

If you think you can, you might as well present your case here.

No, not so fast! Let's get back to the fairies. Fairies are not defined as creatures that can be observed empirically. So if I claim fairies exist and that they transend the empirical, are you going to do as you ask us to do and remain agnostic about their existence?

Ken

 

[RobinRobyn]

The typical dawkins-disciple style of atheist declares with the same certitude with which I inwardly disbelieve in Zeus, that "THERE IS NO NON-EMPIRICAL REALM." Period. This not only leaves no room for fairies, it also precludes the existence of a creator of fairies, and worse, a creator of all that is, was or ever will be, imaginary or not.

And this an atheist cannot declare with certitude if he wishes to use his own methodology of empirical verification. One simply cannot empirically verify the non-existence of that which transcends the empirical.

One can't prove it either. Which leaves the atheist....where? Right where he started. But how can you disbelieve in Zeus if you can't prove he doesn't exist? You have to be agnostic, like you said.

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

Is atheism also materialism?

No, the two are unrelated. One is not nessisary for the other and vice versa.

If an atheist believed in spirit, then the spirit could be his god. Why not?

You mean in the 'we're all just feeling different parts of the elephant' way? Sure it could be possible that what you call god is actually just one of the spirits the atheist believes in. Or the other way around.
(Hypothetically speaking thus ignoring for a moment I dont think the elephant is there .)

But If an atheist who believes in spirits were to come to believe herself that one ore more of the spirits are gods she would no longer be an atheist. She would have become a theist.

 

[Eudaimonist]

If an atheist believed in spirit, then the spirit could be his god. Why not?

It could be if he regarded a spirit/ghost as a god, which would presumably involve the view that this ghost was incredibly powerful and had some signficant role in creating, shaping, or ordering either the universe or human destinies.

I can't think of any reason why someone who believes in ghosts must view ghosts as gods. It's not a requirement. And the moment an atheist did view ghosts as gods, then he would cease to be an atheist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

There are no true atheists, even if a so-called atheist is deceived into thinking he is. Dawkins' mistake is transparent. He touts the certitude that empirical verification provides, and yet he has no empirical verification for believeing that there cannot be a non-empirical realm, which by definition is unreachable via the empirical senses and thus can never be empirically verified. He must remain an agnostic, but prefers to add arrogance to his uncertainty of which I am sure deep within, he is aware.

Consider it a practical choice.

Is it possible there is a realm of things that we cannot detect and do not interact with us in a detectable way? Sure, But its really no different from that realm not existing if we cannot detect it and it has no effects on our realm.

So we're free to act as though that realm isnt there untill it does something, anything, that has an effect in this realm. Because we'd be able to detect that effect, or perhaps even something from that realm.

Think for example of germs before we had the microscopes, one might think that they were undetectable and certainly it is true that we had no way to detect the germs themselfs. But we had no problem detecting the effects they had on people, something was making people sick, something was causing babies to die if handled by a doctor who was disecting a corpse moments before. So it was clear there was something there, weither that something be demons, spirits, nocebo effect, or miniscule little orgamisms.

 

[Eudaimonist]

There are no true atheists, even if a so-called atheist is deceived into thinking he is.

You are probably of the mistaken view that to be an atheist one must have absolute knowledge and certainty that gods don't exist. They don't need that. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in gods. That's it.

He touts the certitude that empirical verification provides, and yet he has no empirical verification for believeing that there cannot be a non-empirical realm, which by definition is unreachable via the empirical senses and thus can never be empirically verified.

Why precisely is someone obligated to prove empirically that a non-empirical realm doesn't exist? It's a senseless request (literally).

No one needs to disprove the infinite number of things that someone can imagine. No one needs to disprove magic leprechauns empirically in order to say: "Leprechauns aren't part of my worldview, and for good reason. My extreme skepticism of their existence is justified."

He must remain an agnostic

He would be an agnostic-atheist.

but prefers to add arrogance to his uncertainty of which I am sure deep within, he is aware.

It's no more arrogant than claiming that Zeus doesn't exist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Cabal]

There are no true atheists, even if a so-called atheist is deceived into thinking he is. Dawkins' mistake is transparent. He touts the certitude that empirical verification provides, and yet he has no empirical verification for believeing that there cannot be a non-empirical realm, which by definition is unreachable via the empirical senses and thus can never be empirically verified. He must remain an agnostic, but prefers to add arrogance to his uncertainty of which I am sure deep within, he is aware.

Right....you do know that if you examine his statement of what he believes, he doesn't make a claim of absolute certainty?

As for there not being true atheists, you're making the mistake of assuming the only kind of atheist is a strong atheist. Not the case.

 

[KCfromNC]

Why precisely is someone obligated to prove empirically that a non-empirical realm doesn't exist? It's a senseless request (literally).

But if you can't do the impossible, it must mean that Jesus died to take away the punishment he put on us in the first place for our ancestors doing something they couldn't have known was wrong. Or something like that - I'm a bit fuzzy on how the rationalization works but you get the general idea.

 

[Cabal]

But if you can't do the impossible, it must mean that Jesus died to take away the punishment he put on us in the first place for our ancestors doing something they couldn't have known was wrong. Or something like that - I'm a bit fuzzy on how the rationalization works but you get the general idea.

Seems like needless semantics to me.

A bit like that "why are you being intolerant of intolerance if you're supposed to be tolerant" old chestnut. Non-stamp-collecting across the board.

 

[ThankGod]

I used to be an atheist. And I can only attest to my feelings at that point in my life.

I was insecure, lonely, bitter, and mean all because I didn't know God and Jesus like I should have.

 

[Cabal]

And I can only attest to my feelings at that point in my life.

There's your problem. The validity of a proposition is not a matter of feelings.